Sir — Many of the published eulogies tothe recently departed Francis Crick, mineincluded, have compared him to otherscientific greats, such as Charles Darwin.I discovered only recently that CharlesDarwin’s last publication was, in effect,a joint publication with Francis Crick’sgrandfather.

On 18 February 1882, Walter Draw-bridge Crick, an amateur malacologist and professional shoe manufacturer living in Northampton, wrote to Darwin to say that he had found a small freshwatercockle attached to the leg of a water beetle.Darwin was always interested in how freshwater animals, and molluscs inparticular, dispersed by hitch-hiking on other animals.

The issue mattered because freshwaterinvertebrates vary surprisingly little from

one region of the world to another. Thiscould mean either that the diffusion offreshwater shells “took place before thepresent distribution of land and water”,as suggested by John Gwyn Jeffreys in hisBritish Conchology (van Voorst, London,1862–1869) — or that there is frequentdispersal and population mixing, as argued by Darwin.

Crick’s grandfather guessed rightly thatDarwin would be interested in the waterbeetle’s passenger. Darwin replied with abarrage of questions. Crick sent him thebeetle and the shell, both of which survivedthe journey. Darwin sent the shell to Gwyn Jeffreys for identification, but GwynJeffreys was away from home and the shellwas returned by a servant, broken. Crick,who knew his molluscs, had alreadyidentified it as Sphaerium corneum, which

Darwin knew by its synonym of Cyclascornea. Crick, meanwhile, had returned tothe pond where he caught the beetle andfound a dead frog with a bivalve of thesame species clamped to its foot.

On 6 April 1882, Darwin’s note “on thedispersal of freshwater bivalves” appearedin Nature. As well as describing Crick’speripatetic cockles, Darwin recalled theextraordinary fact that he had caught afreshwater beetle (of a different genus)while on HMS Beagle, 45 miles from land.

Thirteen days later, Darwin died.Crick died in 1903 at the age of 46,fifty years before his grandson co-discovered a cosmopolitan, universalcode shared by all living creatures.Matt RidleyBlagdon, Seaton Burn,Newcastle upon Tyne NE13 6DD, UK

correspondence

244 NATURE | VOL 431 | 16 SEPTEMBER 2004 | www.nature.com/nature

It’s the science that’s adisaster in the movies …Sir — Your News Feature “Hollywood orbust” (Nature 430, 720–722; 2004) looks at the latest attempts to wed science andHollywood. As a newspaper science writer,I would urge that any such marriage bequickly annulled.

In 1996 I wrote a non-fiction popularbook on the science of tornado and severestorm research. Being a film buff, I wasdelighted when the book was acquired as the official tie-in book for the WarnerBrothers film Twister.

Later, to my embarrassment, I saw thefilm and was horrified by its manglings ofmeteorological science and terminology.And yet these same film-makers hadbragged about “consulting” respectedmeteorologists.

Even a scientist as influential as CarlSagan struggled, not entirely successfully,to preserve verisimilitude in the filmversion of his novel Contact. The movieContact omits the novel’s most hauntingpremise, which concerns the value of �.Why? Because (as one of the film’s topproducers later assured me) � — a concepttaught in every American high school — istoo difficult for audiences to grasp. Whatremark better expresses Hollywood’scontempt for its audience?

And it’s only getting worse. As filmbudgets soar, a studio’s future mightdepend on the success of a single block-buster. Thus scriptwriters are increasinglypressured to erase any dialogue that mightbore or confuse lowbrow viewers. In a

business as cruelly capitalistic as film-making, what alternative do they have?

As the late John Gregory Dunneobserved, on the basis of his manyHollywood experiences, no aesthetic or intellectual argument can withstand the movie mogul’s favourite counterblast:“It’s our money.”

If Hollywood calls your laboratory,hang up.Keay DavidsonSan Francisco Chronicle, 901 Mission Street,San Francisco, California 94103, USA

… yet even flawed films raise interest in researchSir — We read with great interest yourNews Feature “Hollywood or bust”(Nature 430, 720–722; 2004) on scientistsattending a screenwriting class. We usemovies to teach non-science students some basic science in a course calledScience and Cinema.

Movies are a wonderful medium forsparking the interest of students. We usefilms such as Outbreak to teach studentsabout viruses, Jurassic Park to discusscloning, Gattaca for genetic screening andnext year The Day After Tomorrow will beused to introduce the science of climatechange. Those familiar with these films will agree that the cinematic quality isvariable and the representation of thescience sometimes flawed — but all thefilms build an exciting story around ascientific centrepiece, and hence are anexcellent teaching tool.

As scientists, we understand theconcern that movies may misinform the public and that the profession is notaccurately represented on the screen. Weneed to keep these things in perspective,however. Movies usually tell larger-than-life stories and exaggerate characters.Is the work of a lawyer more accuratelyportrayed in films than that of a scientist? Scientists must join a long list of professions stereotyped by the movieindustry.

Furthermore, to assume that mostviewers don’t understand that moviesdistort science in the same way that theydistort historical events is somewhatpatronizing.

In Cinema and Science, the students are taught some basic principles of adiscipline; spotting the flaws in the movie is for many participants the mostrewarding bit. We find it is often the flawsthat inspire non-science students to wantto know more about the current scientificresearch, the future possibilities and theresponsibilities that come with them.

Let’s use the excitement of movies toincrease the understanding of science inthe general public, rather than focus on the inevitable errors.J. Justin Gooding, Katharina GausSchool of Chemistry and Centre for VascularResearch, The University of New South Wales,Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia

correspondenceContributions to Correspondence may be submitted to corres@nature.com. They should be no longerthan 500 words, and ideally shorter. Published contributions are edited.

Crick and Darwin’s shared publication in NatureA humble cockle and the family link between two minds that explored the origins of life.

16.9 correspondence 244 MH 13/9/04 5:11 pm Page 244

© 2004 Nature Publishing Group